Devereux] MOHAVE ETHNOPSYCHIATRY AND SUICIDE 79 



Comment 



Tentative diagnosis: Nymphomania and neurotic tensions in a hysterical 

 character. 



CASE 14 (Informant: Tcatc) : 



Nyortc Hatlyukwe:tc (or Hatlyukwa) of the Nyoltc gens, lived at Parker, 

 Ariz., and died around the turn of the century, at the approximate age of 

 fifty. She had been married successively to a large number of men, and must 

 have had at least one child, since her name was changed to Nyortc, in accordance 

 with the custom which requires that a female member of the Nyoltc gens 

 should be so designated after the death of her child. I was told that Nyortc 

 must have had bad luck, because all of her husbands died after living with 

 her for a short time only. I knew her only in her old age, when she was 

 single. I was told that even in her old age Nyortc still "copulated around," and 

 that she was ya tcahaetk, i. e., a nymphomaniac. She died of some disease, the 

 nature of which is not known to me. I suspect, however, that it must have 

 been hikurpk (syphilis). 



Even her nickname indicates her sexual proclivities, since Hatlyukwe : tc 

 means "looked for" or "sought after." Yet, at the same time, she was basically a 

 very good woman. She was kind and she was very good to everyone . . . much 

 like the woman you told us about.°® That is why no one called her a 

 kamalo : y, who is both dissolute and mean (ala : yk) (Devereux, 1948 f ). Yet, 

 she went with anyone for the asking. Of course, she did not actually solicit 

 men; that wasn't necessary, since everyone knew she could be had, and there- 

 fore men came to her spontaneously. Such a woman is called ya tcahae : tk. 

 [How did she get that way?] There is no real explanation for that. It may 

 be something like this: You may not be known for doing something, such as 

 getting angry, and yet, one day, without knowing it, you might become very 

 angry. It was that way with Nyortc. She just did these things without 

 knowing it ; although sometimes she did know it. There wasn't any particular 

 thing which made her do these things. 

 \ 



Comment 



Tentative diagnosis: Nymphomania. 



Tcatc's interpretative remarks suggest an attempt to explain Nyortc's be- 

 havior in terms of unconscious mechanisms, and, more specifically, in terms of 

 an overwhelming of the ego by ego-dystonic or ego-alien id-forces. Indeed, it is 

 quite obvious that the expression "without knowing it" cannot refer, in this case, 

 either to a fuguelike state, or to an amnesia. There are also other indications 

 that the Mohave sometimes relate abnormal behavior to "knowledge exceeding 

 the heart" (i. e., exceeding the capacity to handle that knowledge) (Case 4). In 

 such a statement the word "knowledge" must obviously refer to some internal 

 urge, wish or fantasy, rather than to intellectual information. 



CASE 15 (Informants: Tcatc and E. S.) : 



"Nyortc Huhual, of the Nyoltc gens, is (1938) a very old woman — she is even 

 older than I am. (I. e., probably over 80 years old.) She had many sex 

 partners and gave birth to four sons, one of whom, Huau Husek' (fly whip), 

 gens Hualy, is still alive. He is married to a Kamia woman and lives near San 



^ Iris Storm, heroine of Michael Arlen's novel "The Green Hat." 



